Revealed: Surviving Malka Leifer

In 2008, accusations surfaced against Malka Leifer, the principal of a girls’ campus at an ultra-Orthodox Jewish school in Melbourne’s inner south-east, alleging she had committed serious offenses against three young students in her care, sisters Dassi Erlich, Nicole Meyer, and Elly Sapper. This sparked a significant moment of reckoning; however, before the police could begin their investigations, Leifer escaped overseas with the school’s help, shrouded in secrecy. This initiated a lengthy extradition battle that spanned nearly a decade, alongside a broader pursuit of justice that uncovered a complex web of international intrigue, legal loopholes, and political corruption, as well as a pervasive culture of silence surrounding sexual abuse.